Medicine Report | The latest medicine news, drug recalls, and homeopathic remedies

OTC HIV Test - FDA Considering Approval

In-Home HIV test (OraQuick)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing the first ever test consumers could purchase over-the-counter to enable concerned individuals to test on their own -- at home and without having to see a doctor -- whether they have the HIV virus. Word is, the FDA is considering approving the test for consumers to purchase at a drug store or online.

The test is called the OraQuick In-Home HIV test, which reviewers think may help slow the spread of the HIV virus. This review comes just one day following an FDA panel approving the HIV pill called Truvada for HIV preventative use.

The concern over the approval with the at home HIV test lies in the concern over privacy. If the OraQuick In-Home HIV test is approved for OTC use, consumers would simply swab their mouth. The test would return a result in 20 minutes.

Experts estimate that roughly a quarter of million people in the United States out of the 1.2 million carriers of the HIV virus, don't even know they are infected. If these people were able to test in the privacy of their own homes, it could slow down the rate of infections. For the past twenty years, the new of new HIV infections has grown at a steady clip of about 50,000 new cases per year.

In a trial conducted to test the accuracy of the test, the test was correct in detecting the HIV virus in those carrying it 93 percent of the time, as conducted by the company OraSure Technologies, Inc. At 99 percent, the test was even better at accurately determining patients who didn't have the disease, which is well over the 95 percent recommended accuracy threshold the FDA advises.

The Mechanics of "Brain Freeze" headaches

Scientists have studied blood flow changes to come up with a theory

Headaches of all sorts are one of those blind spots in modern medicine. We know surprisingly little about where they come from, and how to make them leave. From cluster headaches to migraines to "brain freeze," these excruciating phenomena have been very mysterious… until now.

The phenomena of "brain freeze" (also known as an "ice cream headache") may seem a bit trivial to draw the attention of a multi-national, multi-disciplinary team of medical researchers. But the researchers decided to study brain freeze as a model for understanding all other sorts of headaches. A gateway headache, if you will.

One problem with studying headaches is that - as many migraine sufferers know - you can't easily predict them. This makes it difficult to study them in a laboratory setting. Someone can wait until they have a migraine and then rush to the lab, but this method means that researchers miss out on the crucial early stages when the headache is forming.

You can induce headaches with drugs, of course. But then there's no way to know if (or how) the drugs are interfering with your research.

Enter the dreaded ice cream headache. Easily induced in a laboratory setting, minimally disruptive to the research subjects (compared to, say, a full-blown migraine), and not requiring any drugs that might interfere with testing. 13 subjects were recruited and made to drink ice water through a straw directed at their palate. (The back of the roof of the mouth seems to be a trigger for the brain freeze.)

The subjects raised their hands when they felt the headache (and I imagine they added "Agggh! Guh! Bwahhhhhh! Ugghhhhh!" as well). The researchers then studied the transcranial Doppler, where they discovered something interesting: the headaches coincided with the dilation of one particular artery.

It seems that in response to drinking something very cold, the anterior cerebral artery opens up and floods the brain with blood. The theory is that this is a survival mechanism in response to (say) falling into an icy river. When your mouth floods with very cold water, your body pours blood - and therefore both heat and oxygen - into your skull to help preserve your brain.

On the down side, that big influx of brain severely raises the blood pressure inside the skull. And that crushing squeeze is no doubt what we interpret as an excruciating headache.

The researchers will be formally presenting their paper at a medical conference this week. One hopes they can arrange to rent a Slurpee machine for the occasion, because DAMN.

National Take-Back Day for prescription drugs

It is important to safely dispose of old prescription drugs.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arm of the United States government along with its community partners is holding another national day for the public to safely dispose of old drugs. This year's event will be held on April 28, 2012.

One of the main purposes of the program is to give the public another way to prevent pill theft and abuse by elimination potentially dangerous unused, unwanted or expired prescription drugs from homes. In addition, unused drugs that are discarded can inadvertently end up in the nation's water supply, which is another reason for this DEA event.

Prescription drug abuse is a national problem and the DEA is dedicated to addressing this growing problem. As reported by the DEA, studies indicate that a large number of abused prescription drugs are not obtained from physicians, but rather they are acquired from friends and family, and quite often right from medicine cabinets. Studies are also showing a greater number of teenagers that are abusing prescription drugs -- many of which they obtain right from their parent's own medicine cabinet. Additionally, prescription drugs potency and effectiveness come into question whenever stored too long.

The 2012 Take-Back Prescription Drug Day is the fourth year for conducting the event. The prior three events had been hugely successful, with Americans disposing safely of almost 500 tons of medications in the last two years alone.

To find a nearby prescription drug collection site, go to the Drug Enforcement Administration's website, www.dea.gov. From there, click on the icon labeled "Got Drugs." By entering your zip code, you'll be linked to database to local collection sites.

Polyphasic Sleep: It Just Doesn't Work

Unless your goal is to be more miserable, of course!

Polyphasic sleep is one of those things that only enjoyed a limited popularity until someone invented the internet, and it became something of a fad. (What is it about the internet that fosters these oddball fixations?) Many people have attempted polyphasic sleep. But any who claim to have mastered it are, according to one biologist, either liars or suffering from a sleep disorder.

Most of us, most of the time, experience monophasic sleep. You go to bed, sleep in one reasonably contiguous chunk, then get up and go about your day. Duophasic sleep is also common, including the tradition in Latin countries of the afternoon siesta.

In polyphasic sleep, you sleep in several small chunks around the clock. The claim is that it is more efficient, because you get more concentrated sleep in shorter bursts. It's a form of binge sleeping, in a way. Just like binge eating, the idea is to eat more in a shorter time.

The main problem with polyphasic sleep is that it tends to make its human subjects miserable. Just ask any new parent who has been tending to a colicky newborn around the clock. Or to the people who suffer polyphasic sleep due to a sleep disorder, and have no other option.

We know so little about sleep, it's both tempting - and unwise - to meddle with it. What little we know about the benefits of sleep tends to indicate that most of us don't get enough of it, and that it has deeper effects than we can measure. If you take a nap after studying, you learn faster. If you stay awake for too long, you die. In both cases, science doesn't know why. It can only verify that it's true.

Why is polyphasic sleep so appealing to some people? First, because it scratches that "everything you know is wrong and only I know the truth" itch that some people have. And second, because many famous geniuses throughout history have CLAIMED to enjoy polyphasic sleep, including Einstein, Franklin, and Churchill. However, many are skeptical of these claims, pointing out that they are not only unverified, but that they stem from people who are notably self-aggrandizing.

Adopting a polyphasic sleep schedule won't make you a genius like Ben Franklin. At best, it's a cargo cult. At worst, it will make you miserable and dangerous behind the wheel of a car. Naps are great, but indulging in nothing but naps around the clock won't do your body any favors!

New way to save on prescription medications

The Medication Discount Card offers savings on many popular prescriptions

With the economy still struggling, gas prices nearing record highs and unemployed workers without insurance, there's a new way to save on your prescription medications.

MDC recently announced a Medication Discount Card. In addition to using the discount card at the pharmacy, consumers can now locate coupons for many of their prescriptions right on the website. The site offers a listing of drugs, which the consumer can find via its initial first letter.

Users can save anywhere from 10 percent to 75 percent on certain medications. The medications that consumers can receive savings on are all FDA-approved medications.

As an example, there is a $10 coupon for Advair, which can be redeemed once per month.

In addition to the coupons and costs savings using the discount card, consumers can find manufacturer rebates for medications by perusing the site.

As another card perk, the Medication Discount Card provides other discounts on medications that are typically covered under most health insurance plans. These include products, such as antacids, appetite suppressants, contraceptive implants and devices, smoking cessation prescriptions, vaccines, immunizations, cosmetic drugs for hair growth, cosmetic drugs for wrinkles, nutritional supplies and many more.

In order to find if a coupon is available in addition to the discount card savings, the consumer needs to click on the first letter of their medication. Then, the user needs to scroll through the list of medications to find the one that they are looking for. Once they find their medication, they click on the link. This brings them to a page on the medication. If there is a coupon for the medication, a link will be located at the bottom of the page.

Promising New Drug for Ulcerative Colitis

It's called MDX-1100.

Ulcerative Colitis is a particularly painful, and for some, embarrassing digestive system disease. It occurs when the intestines became inflamed. They can become so inflamed that the sufferer is in pain, has fevers, has bleeding, and can lose weight. Diarrhea is often present, requiring frequent trips to the bathroom.

The disease often starts in the rectal area, but it can grow slowly to infect the entire large intestine. While the exact cause is not known, it is believed that a weaker immune systems, certain foods, and stress can trigger attacks.

In severe cases, surgery is an option, but that involves removing the colon, which requires the patient to wear an ileostomy bag to collect waste. There's also steroids -- while this helps some, others cannot tolerate the side effects which may include cramping and weight gain. Some drugs also suppress the immune system, which makes the patient more prone to infection and other diseases, like cancer.

Now, there a new experimental therapy in the works. It's called MDX-1100. Unlike other ulcerative colitus medications, MDX doesn't suppress the immune system. Rather, it promotes the healing of the lining of the colon. Technically, the drug blocks one of the body's proteins, called chemokine. MDX-1100 appears to just focus on the colon, while leaving the rest of the body alone.

So far, the results of the Phase One study look promising. And the medication has now moved to Phase Two testing. It's important to note, that when patients stop taking the drug, the ulcerative colitus symptoms return.

Cancer-Sniffing Robot Could Facilitate Diagnosis

New machine detects airborne molecules produced by tumors

What's that smell? You or I wouldn't be able to detect it, but certain types of cancer emit their own specific odor when present in the body of a human. The best instrument for picking up that scent so far has been one not commonly used in medical science: the nose of a dog. Researchers proved that trained canines could determine whether an individual had breast or lung cancer with 99 percent accuracy. That's a far better rate than any lab test can give you.

So why haven't we started using dogs to diagnose cancer? A quick sniff test could eliminate the need for biopsies and other scans, saving patients and insurance companies lots of money. Well, dogs and hospitals don't mix so well. The infrastructure necessary to keep a team of cancer-sniffing pups on staff would cost about as much as would be saved from avoiding standard lab tests. Human doctors can feed themselves and go home at the end of their very long work days, but dogs require constant care from people. It's just not practical to install a kennel in a hospital that's already full of patients, doctors, and sleepy med students. So scientists are working on building a machine with a nose as good as a dog's.

A small startup in Mountain View called Metabolomx has invented a machine with a pretty keen sense of smell, so to speak. It looks like little more than a hose connected to a box, but it's got some powerful technology inside. Patients who exhibit symptoms of lung cancer breathe into the hose for a few minutes while the attached computer analyzes the volatile organic compounds in their breath. Lung tumors produce specific VOCs not found in a healthy person's breath. Dogs can smell the tumor-made molecules and so can Metabolomx's machine.

The machine doesn't quite outperform its canine counterparts. Out of 229 people scanned, it only picked up on the presence of lung cancer 80 percent of the time. But it was able to distinguish between different types of lung cancer with 85 percent accuracy--a higher rate than the dogs were able to accomplish. Doctors are waiting for the machine to achieve at least a 93 percent accuracy average before adopting it for use in diagnosing patients, so we won't see cancer-smelling robots on the medical market quite yet. But if the technology can be refined, we may be able to reduce dependence on painful, expensive tests when scoping out lung cancer.

Environmental Toxins Pass Through the Generations

According to a recent study from the Washington State University, the effects of environmental toxins on a person do not just affect that individual but as many as three generations later as well. This new study can help to show that these toxins are incredibly important to protect against.

The study indicates that the DNA sequence passed from one generation to the next does not change when there are environmental toxins exposed to the individual. However, the compounds change the way that genes work. More specifically, in the way that these genes turn on and off. Scientists knew that these toxins could expose the individual and potentially a next generation to troublesome conditions, but they did not know how far it would pass.

The study looked at all types of toxins as well. This includes chemicals like pesticides DEEt and permethrin, as well as jet fuel, dioxin and plastics. Fungicide products offered similar results, according to the study. With this information is not just important for treatment of these conditions or prevention methods. It is also important information that scientists can use better to understand how diseases develop.

In the long term, scientists hope to be able to use the information provided through this research to better prepare for the future. For example, they will be able to genetically test the individual, learn about the presence of these toxins and then help individuals to predict diseases later in life and potentially avoid them as a result. There is still a great deal of research to be conducted but the opportunities for using this information are incredible.

Treating Drug Addiction with Mobile Technology

New app could help monitor quitting progress

Most of the apps we download serve little purpose other than to momentarily distract us while we're waiting for something else to happen. Sure, there are productivity aids and various utilities that can be downloaded to our smartphones, but for the most part we're taking advantage of the App store so we can play Robot Unicorn Attack while we wait for our name to be called at the dentist's. Not that there's anything wrong with that; the human brain needs stimulation in times of idleness and any game with an Erasure soundtrack is good by me. But it's always nice to see developers taking advantage of the smartphone's capacity to do good.

Like, for example, the folks at UMass who conjured up iHeal. Despite its tackily borrowed iWhatever name template, iHeal pushes mobile technology into a brave new place by making use of auxiliary electronics to help users manage their drug addiction or recover from post-traumatic stress disorder.

How can one iPhone app do all that? It gets a little help from biosensors. Users wear a bracelet that detects basic bodily stats, like motion, skin temperature, and heart rate, then transmits that data wirelessly to a nearby cell phone. The app keeps track of all that data and tastefully intervenes when it suspects that the user is facing a moment of crisis. Whenever signals of extreme cravings or stress are received by the app, it supplies multimedia drug prevention strategies. While it can't lessen cravings itself, it can help by providing resources like addiction hotlines or quitting tips when the need for them is most dire.

I don't know how much a timely multimedia reminder to seek help might actually assist a drug addict in need, but the power of suggestion is strong. Even just charting your own progress in cutting down on your dosages might work wonders for some people. But the hardware that the iHeal system is experimenting with does show promise. Imagine the future of mobile technology combined with healthcare gadgets. A similar wristband could do more than just measure your bio-stats on a daily basis. It could potentially administer treatment based on its readings, too. Or you could synch up your iHeal app with an email account that notifies your doctor whenever your cravings become too extreme. Wearing a little robot on your wrist that lets others know when you need help most could be truly beneficial for some people in crisis. I guess we'll see where this idea goes.

Is Apple Cider Vinegar A Miracle Cure?

The internet is crazy about it - but I'm not so sure

The internet has a lot of peculiar fascinations. Among these is apple cider vinegar, which is touted as a cure for just about anything that ails you.

I used to spend a lot of time on a forum devoted to raising chickens (I have three pet chickens) where it was a common enough recommendation that it was always referred to as "ACV." You were supposed to put a tablespoon in every gallon of your chickens' water in order to prevent worms, and for your chickens' overall health. I never did it - I always felt bad about the idea of making my chickens drink vinegar water - but I always wondered if these health claims were true.

For people, the internet touts apple cider vinegar for weight loss, arthritis, chronic fatigue, yeast infections, blood pressure - you name it!

Question 1: Why apple cider vinegar, specifically?

There are a lot of different kinds of vinegar in the world. All of these liquids get their "vinegar-i-ness" from acetic acid. The acetic acid is produced by fermenting ethanol. The difference is what source of ethanol is being used.

White vinegar is just acetic acid plus water. Apple cider vinegar is fermented from apples. Red wine vinegar is fermented from red wine, and so forth.

So the question is, what's so special about apple cider that it becomes a miracle cure when it is fermented into vinegar? Vinegar also contains a lot of acids, mineral salts, amino acids, and other trace chemicals from the source material. No one is sure which of these could be making an impact with apple cider vinegar (even the language is vague), but everyone is sure it's in there somewhere.

Question 2: How is it supposed to work?

An excellent question, and one which so far has gone unanswered. Most studies have focused on the acetic acid, presumably because it's a lot easier to quantify amounts in a laboratory study. But proponents of apple cider vinegar cures believe it's a holistic product, that the fluid has to be studied as a whole, and that it's probably some kind of arcane combination of chemicals that does the trick.

Question 3: Does it really work?

It's not likely to hurt you, as long as you consume it in sane amounts. It's cheap, which is more than I can say for a lot of miracle cures. And even if it only works as a placebo, the placebo effect is a robust and very real thing!

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